REPORT 



or' TJIK 



COMMITTEE 



UXDER THK 



ACT PROVIDING FOR THE ERECTION OF A MONUMENT \ \ 



OVBn THE G»AVF. 01' 



]ETH:A.ISr ^LLEISr 



PRINTED BY ORDER OP THE SENATE. 



MONTPELIER : 

r.. 1>. WALTON, PRINTER. 

1858. 



REPORT 



OF tm. 



COMMITTEE 



UXUKIJ THK 



ACT PROVIDING FOR THE ERECTION OF A MONUMENT 



OVER THE GRAVV. 01" 



ETIIA.1^ ^LLEN 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE SENATE. 



MONTPELIER; 

E. P. WALTON, PRIXTER 

1858. 



°<V/J^,> 



? 









REPORT. 



To His Excellency, Ryland Fletcueii, 

Governor of Vermont : 
The undersigned Committee, appointed imder the act of the 
Legislature of this State, entitled " an act providing for the 
erection of a monument over the grave of Ethan Allen," approv- 
ed 14th November, 1855, are happy in reporting the completion 
of said monument, agreeably to a plan and inscriptions submitted 
to and approved by your predecessor, and consisting of a Tuscan 
column of granite, forty-two feet in height and four and a half 
feet in diameter at its base, with a pedestal six feet square, in 
which are inserted four plates of white marble, having the fol- 
lowing inscriptions, fo vnt : 



[ West 8ide. 



VERMONT 

TO 

ETHAN ALLEK 

BORX 

ill Litchfield Ct 10th Jan A T) 1737 o - 

DIED 

ii. Burlington Vt 12th Feb A D 1789 
and buried near the site of this monument 



South Side. 



The 

LKAUiiK or THE OKEEX ilOUNTAlX BOVi 

in the surprise and capture of 

TICONDBEOGA 

which he demanded "in the name uf 

the Great Jehovah and the 

Continental Congress" 



East Side. 



Taken 

Prisoner in a daring attack on Montreal 

and transported to England 

he disarmed the purpose of his enemy 

by the respect whieh he inspired 

for the 

REBELLION AND THE REBEL. 



North Side. 



"Wielding 

the Pen as well as the Sword, he ivas the 

sagacious and intrepid 

DEFENDER 

iif tiie New Hampshire Grants, and 

Master Spirit 

ill the arduous struggle which resulted in the 

Sovereignty and Independence 

of this State. 



The whole structure stands upon a solid foundation of stone 
work, five feet deep and ten feet square, and thus founded, and 
thus constructed of solid granite blocks from our native hills, it 
bids fair to stand, an unfaltering witness of the high appreciation 
of the State for one of her foremost and earliest patriots, through 
a Ions: succession of centuries to come, 



lu the body of the act above referred to, it is directed that the 
raouument be erected •'• at the burial place of Ethan Allen, iu 
Burlington." Failing to discover his remains beneath the tablet 
Avhich had, for years:?, marked the supposed spot of his burial, 
and which liad been carried away piecemeal by patriotic pil~ 
grims to his shrine, the public mind became much excited, and 
the most absurd rumors and statements were published, and gain- 
ed extensive credence, as to his burial in various other towns ; 
and the abstraction of his remains by pious relatives or rapaciou^ 
speculators. The Committee have never doubted as to the place of 
his burial ; and by an unbroken tradition, the uniform understand- 
ing of the relatives, couiirmed by the testimony of undoubted wir- 
iiesses who were present at his funeral, (which funeral was of a 
public and formal character,) it is decisively settled that that placf 
is where the monument is erected, in what is called '' Green 
Mount Cemetery."" The failure to hnd the remains beneath th..' 
tablet is, in the minds of the Committee, sufficiently accounted 
for by the fact that, some twenty years since, the dead of the 
Allen family were arranged in a square enclosed by stone posts 
and chains, by Heman Allen, tlie nephew of Ethan Allen : and 
this tablet, then lying upon a dilapidated wall of brick work, was 
reconstructed with cut stone work, and it is presumed that, as a 
jnatter of convenience in giving a regular form to the cnclosurt!. 
was removed some few I'eet from its original position, and the 
Committee have no doubt that by excavation in the immediate 
vicinity of the monument the remains might be found ; h\n -a^ 
doubts would probably be raised as to their identity, as it wa> 
not necessary to the faithful discharge of the duty of the Com- 
nnttee, and would accomplish no essential good, they instituted 
no examination. 

The contract for the erection of ihis monument w as uuide with 
Mr. ,T. P. Harrinccton. of South Barre. on the 15th dnv of 



October, 1856. Bj the terms of it, he was to accomplish the 
work, as before described, by the 1st day of October, 1857, for 
the sum of two thousand dollars, being the whole amount of the 
appropriation. The Committee regret the delay in the execu- 
tion of the work, but in every other respect they have reason to 
be satisfied with the contractor, who has honorably fulfilled, and 
in some respects more than fulfilled, the terms of the contract, 
and that too, as the Committee appreliend, without the hope or 
realization of a full compeusalion. The work, to say nothing of 
the design, is, we think, highly creditable to the contractor, and 
to the State. 

[n the process of erecting the monument, a vacancy occurring 
beneath the cap stone of the pedestal, the Committee availed 
themselves of the opportunity thereby afi'orded by placing therein 
a stone pot securely sealed, containing the following among other 
articles : the newspapers of tlie town and of the various cities 
of the Union; Allen's Narrative of his Captivity: xippleton's 
Railway Guide and Maps ; the ^'ermont Register ; sundry Amei- 
ican coins, and various seeds. A more ibrmal deposit is contem- 
plated beneath the statue, which it is hoped may surmount the 
(column. 

To carry out the suggestion heretofore made in our report, 
and the Avishes of sundry patriotic citizens, the Committee pro- 
cured the passage of an act, at the last session of the Legislature, 
authorizing the erection, by private donations, of a collossal 
statue of the Hero on the top of the column erected by the State : 
and thereupon issued circulars to the citizens of Yermont, at 
liome and abroad, asking a donation of one dollar each. The 
Committee have been disappointed ii; the response to the appli- 
cations, and have received in all only some five hundred dollars. 
Nevertheless, a young and patriotic artist, a native of this State, 
Mr. Larkin G. Mead, Jr.. of Brattleboro'. lias volunteered to 



make a model of the statue in plaster, which the Committee have 
approved, and vrhich they think highly creditable to the artist, 
and which, completed in marble, will constitute, with the column, 
not only a highly fitting monument, but a noble work of art. 
Through the generosity and patriotism of a citizen of this State, 
a block of marble suitable for the statue has, as the Committee 
understand, been proffered to Mr. Mead, and the Committee hope 
that, through a like commendable spirit to be evinced by others, 
a work so lionorable to the people of Vermont may be accom- 
plished. 

All which is respectfully submitted. 



JOHN N. POMEROY, i ^ 

CxEO. P. MARSH. 1 Committee- 



Har/in^'ton, Sept., 1858. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





011 699 179 2 



